Trigun: Agony
by Tigress of the Moon
Summary: Sequel to Anime. Knives awakens and tortures Vash's soul with another death, one that plagues him so greatly that he unknowingly turns his heart to ice and becomes what he's hated all his life. Bang.
1. Upon Returning

What If  
  
A/N & Disclaimer: This fanfic is a sequel/continuation to the anime series Trigun. This fanfic was inspired by a dream I had and all information that this story is based on was found from watching the dubbed version of Trigun shown at 1:00am on Cartoon Network (and just because of that fact, there probably will be little, to no Japanese in this fic. Gomen!). Oh, and I don't own Trigun. I don't even have any of the DVDs! *sniffle* (If you still want to read this after reading the disclaimer, may the Force be with you and...) Oh, and P.S. (could you even call this a P.S.?) This is going to be my favorite combo of themes! (YAY!!) Comedy/Romance/Angst I don't know in what order though...*sweatdrop*...Oh well!...Enjoy!  
  
Chapter One: Upon Returning  
  
Vash walked back to the town with the unconscious Knives slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Of course, he valued his twin far more than a canvas sack filled with tubers, but there was just no other way of transporting the guy.  
  
The town was miles away and Vash set off toward it on foot while Milly and Merle danced in the spray of water from the underground aquifer that had finally been reached through the well drilling. It was a promise of hope, of a new beginning, a fresh start, the water purifying the mistakes of the past to lead onto a brighter future.  
  
Merle stopped as these thoughts swept over her mind like a wave washing over the shore, leaving some of its water behind as it returns back to the ocean, fleeting, but still leaving part of its essence behind. Merle smiled and turned her head to gaze in the direction Vash has left earlier that day. The digging and drilling had occupied the painful space of her mind that had been worrying about Vash, and now that that excursion was very well done (no pun intended) over with, her mind wandered to the question of his well-being. And it sat there, and grew.  
  
She tried to rip out the thoughts, like vines slowly creeping into a forbidden part of the garden, but still they grew.  
  
Quickly she turned to Milly. "So...Milly....What do we do now?"  
  
The tall, kindhearted woman, who had absent-mindedly been holding her hand to her lower abdomen, had a startled look on her face for a moment, as if she had been suddenly pulled from some deep thought, and then looked down at Merle with a warm smile on her face. "Wait until Vash, returns, I guess." She looked out onto the same spot on the horizon where Merle had been staring just seconds before. "It still is our job to look after him, you know."  
  
Merle smiled as she returned her gaze to the desert landscape. "That's true."  
  
The water had stopped its frenzied spurting, but not until after it left everyone and everything soaked with water.  
  
Merle felt refreshed and filled with hope for a new start. Surely if this plentiful a water supply could be found in such a barren dessert, then her love for Vash could be returned to her by the one she loved so purely. She smiled as she brushed a strand of water logged hair behind an equally soaked ear.  
  
Vash was strolling through the desert toward her. Well, maybe not exactly strolling, but he wasn't exactly walking either. He had spent the first twenty or so minutes after his fight with Knives trying to figure out what to do with his unconscious brother, since he couldn't bring himself to kill him, and now had given up on trying to figure out a coherent...actually, more like "realistic"...plan for his wounded onii-san (there's that Japanese....shhh...pretend it's not there).  
  
All he could hope for for now was that the baka stayed unconscious until he got back. Then he could tie his hands together behind his back, his feet together in front of him, and take that horrible gun into his own, much safer, possession. Yes, that was a halfway decent plan. It was better than leaving him to bleed to death from his gunshot wounds in the middle of a crater surrounded by desert...and more desert....and more desert. Yeah, that definately wouldn't have been nice. So...now what?...Well, the town was in sight, and Merle had just spotted the fuzzy, black dot in the blurry haze of the horizon. Time to wait for Vash to make his way to the city. After all, everyone was way too excited and busy because of the recently tapped aquifer to go and retrieve Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon, and his beloved aniki from the sweltering desert sun...How kind.  
  
Moving on...(let's skip about an hour of walking...just pop in a random tape or something to fill up the time...or you could just keep reading..you don't actually have to wait...unless you want it to feel more real...but do you really want to? No, you don't, so...here it is!)  
  
An hour later, Vash walked into the concrete maze of buildings with their crude, square holes for windows. By this time, the not-so-twin suns had evaporated the earlier explosion of water and the town was back to its normal, dry state. Except, of course, for the new, plentiful supply of water that resided in its center. (Please don't tell me you've forgotten about the well already! You haven't? Yay! I love you! Okay, now I can move on!)  
  
The unconscious Knives (the person, not the sharp, pointy objects) still over his shoulder, Vash proceeded to walk toward the room he had stayed in the previous day.  
  
Sweat had started to bead on his face and as soon as he eased his brother into a slumped over position against the nearest wall, he raced over to the sink, turned on the tap, and stuck his head under the faucet....While Milly and Merle, who had been sitting on the other side of the door at a table, sweat dropped.  
  
After about thirty seconds Vash let out an appreciative "Ahh", wiped his mouth across the sleeve of his red trench coat, and walked over to his unconscious brother.  
  
"Hello," Merle said, her eye twitching.  
  
Vash nearly jumped out of his skin. "Oh, hello, ladies. I didn't see you there." He closed his eyes and grinned. Milly did the same, but waved. Merle sweat dropped.  
  
"So, who's that?" Milly asked, pointing to the blonde, spiky haired man slouched against the wall.  
  
"My brother." Vash said as he stared into the man's face.  
  
Milly and Merle's jaws dropped.  
  
Vash looked over at them, gave a nervous grin, and sweat dropped. "Actually, you could say he's more of my twin."  
  
Merle subconsciously picked her jaw up from the table when her eyes spotted the bandages covering both the man's shoulders and thighs. "What happened to him?" She said as she pushed her chair away from the small, wooden table and walked over to the blonde-haired duo.  
  
Vash hesitated and then sighed. /No use lying./ "I shot him."  
  
"You shot him?!" Milly nearly yelled, so surprised that she actually stood up, hands slamming palm-down onto the tabletop, her chair pushed into the open door behind her. "How could you do such a thing?...I would never be able to do something like that to my little big sister, or my big big sister, or-"  
  
Milly interrupted her as she squatted down next to Vash. "What happened?"  
  
Vash dropped his head as he closed his eyes and sighed. He lifted his head and looked at his brother again before he replied. "There was nothing else I could do. He would've shot me if I hadn't shot him."  
  
Merle noticed the look of pain on Vash's face. She really hated seeing him this way. It seemed that everything that happened to him in life caused him pain, and trouble haunted his every foot step, like a hungry dog constantly biting at his heels. You couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy. Her eyes saddened as she continued to look at him.  
  
Vash obviously wasn't very pleased with himself. He sighed as he dropped backward onto his rear and crossed his arms over the tops of his knees, then rested his chin on his arms.  
  
"Well...Shouldn't you tie him up or something?"  
  
Merle and Vash both looked up at Milly a little surprised, not expecting her to say anything, probably even forgetting that she was in the room.  
  
Vash slid his feet under him and used his left arm to help push off the floor into a standing position. "Yeah, but rope won't help much. His mind is much more dangerous than any weapon he could handle with his hands, and if he really wanted, he could find a way to get away with both hands and feet tied."  
  
Vash was still looking at his brother. Sorrow, anger, and something else present in his eyes. Hate?, Merle ventured to guess. But she wasn't quite sure if Vash was capable of such a thing. And even if he was...Her gaze ventured back to Knives...What would this man have had to have done for Vash to hate him?...Merle got goose bumps at the thought.  
  
"Milly? Could you run and try and find me some rope?" Vash asked.  
  
Milly smiled. "Oh, we already have some in the cabinet, Mr. Vash, sir." Milly walked over to the cabinets above the sink and pulled out a coil of rope. "I got some just in case. Rope is always handy," she said, handing it over to Vash with a smile.  
  
He smiled back. "Thanks. I have to get this done before he wakes." Vash assumed a look of concentration and began to tie Knives' hands and feet together.  
  
***  
  
A/N: Well, what did ya think? Don't ask about the style it's written in. It's kind-of a cross between really serious stuff and light n' fluffy comedy. I'm trying to make it have the same feel as the series as well as provide enough comedy, angst, romance, and especially detail to make it a fun and enjoyable read (and I really sound like a sales marketer....but that's okay!)  
  
Preview: Men's hearts grow hard and cold to some things along the path of life. When darkness is cast upon the hopes for the future, the coldness in a man's heart sometimes consumes his soul and casts him into the world of the blind. When blind, man can act irrationally and make silly mistakes.  
  
Chapter Two: Complications Arise 


	2. Complications Arise

What If  
  
A/N & Disclaimer: I still don't own Trigun. *sigh* but I'm working on it! Maybe I can buy it from Yasuhiro Nightow on Ebay. (Wishful thinking.) Yeah, so anyway, thanks for coming to the next chapter! It's still Comedy/Angst/Romance if you were wondering and I'm still trying to keep the style and characters as close to the series as possible. I heard Yasuhiro Nightow is writing a sequel to Trigun called Trigun Almighty, but he doesn't want it made into anime! *sniffle* So, if we see it, it probably won't be for a long time. I wasn't originally going to write a sequel to the series for that reason alone. Funny how things work..heh heh...*sweatdrop*...Oh well, enjoy!  
  
Chapter 2: Complications Arise  
  
Knives stirred and his eyelids fluttered before he opened them. His confused, blue eyes took in the room that surrounded him, as his back felt the wall behind him. Looking around, he spotted a bed over in the left corner of the room, a small kitchen-like area in the opposite corner, and to his immediate right a wooden table with a few chairs, one of them being occupied.  
  
The woman sitting there had a boyishly short length to her black hair, and she was wearing some weird white outfit. Knives studied her a bit more and noticed she was trying to concentrate on reloading and making minor repairs to her guns, but her violet eyes kept on glazing over and she wasn't getting much work done.  
  
Knives struggled to move, and it was then that he realized that his hands and feet were tied together. Merle heard the subtle movement, so her eyes flashed over to his direction and grew wide when she noticed him. He frowned as he struggled against his bonds and when he was just about to see if he could trick the woman into untying them for him, she was out of the room and down the hall screaming "Vash" at the top of her lungs.  
  
Now it was Knives' turn for his eyes to grow wide. So that's why he was here! He remembered now. His brother had shot him four times, once in each shoulder and once in each thigh. Maybe that was why his head was so fuzzy and hurt like the seven hells.  
  
He tried moving again so he could get a better look at the once and only entrance to the room, but pain shot out from all four areas at once, blacking him out for a moment. He grit his teeth as he waited for the pain to subside. His wounds were bandaged, but not completely healed, and from the looks of it, it appeared that he had just ripped open the wound on his left shoulder. He sighed and rested his back against the wall, waiting for his brother to return to the room.  
  
Vash was running down the hall toward the room. It would figure that as soon as he left the room to get something to eat his brother would wake up. He knew that Knives wouldn't be able to do much because he wasn't exactly in prime condition, but it was still a dangerous gamble to leave him alone with Merle.  
  
The Humanoid Typhoon burst into the room and stopped in the doorway, gasping for air, the door slammed into the wall to his left. The sound still echoed in the room. It had been like a gunshot in the middle of a barren desert.  
  
Knives' and Vash's eyes met and they stared at each other, neither willing to break the contact. Both were frowning and didn't look very happy.  
  
Merle finally approached the room and stood behind Vash, who was now moving out of the doorway. Without even looking at her, he said. "Stay away. Stay out of this room. Don't even come near it and try to get everyone else as far away from it as possible."  
  
Merle opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped with the door was closed in her face. Her eye was twitching a bit as she walked away, but she sighed when she realized that it was probably for the best anyway.  
  
Vash walked over to Knives and stared down at him, fingering the gun at his side.  
  
"I'm surprised you didn't kill me. To think, after all I've done, you left me alive. And you even bandaged my wounds," he said with a sadistic grin.  
  
"Rem wouldn't have wanted me to," Vash said, still frowning, but some of the hate had crept back into his eyes, and the sorrow and anger was there as well.  
  
"Are you still in love with that pathetic human, Vash?! After over a hundred years you still love her?! If that stupid bitch hadn't redirected those pods, we would've had this entire planet to ourselves, and those stinking humans would've been wiped out of existence. They wouldn't've had another chance to kill another planet. Those wastes of space would have burned to a crisp in the atmosphere...I thought you wanted to save the butterflies, Vash."  
  
The old argument made Vash's eyes seem to glow with anger. "I told you, you idiot, I want to save them both."  
  
Knives was smiling. "If you save all the butterflies, the spiders will eventually die of starvation." He would've gone on, but he was cut short. Vash had taken his gun and was pressing it against Knives' forehead.  
  
"I don't want to kill you."  
  
"You've already shot me! How many times, Vash?! How many!?" He yelled as he leaned forward into the gun, yelling at Vash. There was sorrow present in his eyes as well. A different type of sorrow. "The butterflies can't live if the spiders are always looking to catch them in their webs. How many times have you gotten caught, Vash? How many times did the spiders almost get you? You're a lucky butterfly, but you won't have to be lucky if all the spiders die." Knives got a maniacal look on his face.  
  
Vash's eyes hadn't changed throughout Knives' entire speech. "I told you, I want to save them both."  
  
Knives leaned backwards into the support of the wall behind him. "There's no point, Vash. I don't see why you like them so much. They're disgusting creatures and all they do is kill each other to support themselves. Why not just get rid of the annoying insects?" (Okay, I know spiders are arachnids, not insects, but bare with me.)  
  
Vash cocked his gun. It wasn't located in the center of Knives' forhead anymore because he had leaned backward, but it was still pointed at his head.  
  
A look of shock regestered on Knives' face, and then it broke into a grin. "You like that woman, don't you? Something about her reminds you of Rem, huh? Well, let's make it so that she reminds you of Rem a little bit more."  
  
Vash's eyes grew wide, and he pulled the trigger on the gun.  
  
But it was too late. Someone had attacked him from behind, and yet another person was undoing Knives' bonds. The bullet Vash had fired left a perfect circle in the wall next to Knives' head, no other damage had been done. Vash struggled aginst the one who held him from behind.  
  
He managed to hit the man on the top of his head with the but of his gun, knocking him unconscious, but by the time this was acheived, Knives had already left the room and was walking calmly down the hall.  
  
"Knives!" Vash yelled, scrambling to the doorway. Unfortunately, as he passed through it into the hallway, he was overcome by a massive number of androids that someone must've been controling from a distance. Now that he thought about it...Vash looked into the room and realized that the two people he thought were men helping Knives were actually androids as well.  
  
He immediately began firing his gun, taking one right after the other out in a steady, unerring sequence and speed. In a matter of moments, all the androids lay sparking and twitching on the floor of the hallway. During the process, Vash had went to grab Knives' gun so he wouldn't have to reload his own, only to find that the gun was. Knives must've somehow taken it back during the scuffle in the room. A scream rang through the building, echoing when it reached the hallway. "Merle!" Vash whisered under his breath as he ran down the hallway, subconsciously avoiding the smoking electronics that blocked his path.  
  
***  
  
A/N: Sorry this one is shorter than the last chapter, and there's that awful cliffhanger. Well, no worries, if you review, then the next chapter will arrive, if not, then you'll just have to wonder for the rest of your life what happens. *smiles*  
  
Preview: When love is finally found after a long period of suffering, people'll do anything to protect it. But when a situation arises when protection is impossible, and the love is lost, then a brief lapse of insanity will sometimes ensue. What will happen to a man's heart when he's loved is lost?  
  
Chapter 3: Reoccurrence of Loss 


	3. Reoccurrence of Loss

Trigun: Agony  
  
A/N & Disclaimer: Okay! The official name of this fic is "Trigun: Agony," but the original name was "What If" which is why on the previous two chapters it says "What If" at the top. Just ignore it until I can change it. Thanks! Oh, and I don't own Trigun, and any one who's read the offical sequel, I'm sorry if this is no where near close to what happens. This is just what happened inside my head after the series ended. And, like I said before, it was inspired by a dream, so....*sweatdrop*...Yeah...Enjoy!  
  
Chapter 3: Reoccurrence of Loss  
  
Knives was staring at Merle, an evil grin on his face. His gun was pointed at her, cocked and loaded, but his mind was wandering away from the idea of just pulling the trigger. He was more creative than that.  
  
Vash burst into the doorway at the end of the hallway, a fierce anger burning in his eyes as he cocked his gun and aimed it at Knives. And fired. Knives knew better by now and dodged the bullet. Of course, he could've used Merle to catch the offending nuisance of propelled metal, but that just wouldn't've been fun.  
  
Earlier, Merle had tried using the guns from her cloak to shoot the gun out of Knives' hand, but it ended up working the other way around, and she soon knew she was defenseless. Milly was no where to be found and, luckily, aside from the bar stool Merle occupied, the rest of the tavern was empty. A celebration was taking place in the center of town, all of its people rejoycing over their new chance at life in this once slowly dying city. They were alone, which made the situation better and yet worse at the same time.  
  
Vash looked determined and set in the way he had chosen to take.  
  
"I'm sorry, Vash, but I just don't see the resemblance. What admiring qualities do you find in humans, anyway?" Knives was still looking at Merle, his gun aimed at her head. "I just can't seem to find any. Maybe I'll just destroy this town and all of it's filthy inhabitants."  
  
Vash's eyes widened as he watched Knives' arm transform. Though they may have been "Angel Arms," Knives wasn't an angel of mercy and that arm could bring about the apocolypse if he so wished. Vash knew. He had put a decent sized crater in the moon himself...and that had been from a reasonable distance. Close range at maximum output would be even more devestating than Vash's previous mistake.  
  
Without even thinking, Vash fired and the bullet flew threw the transforming limb, a spurt of blood trailing behind it as it passed out the other side. Knives would've screamed, but some part of his mind had expected it.  
  
"You shot me again, brother. How many times are you going to shoot me before you kill me?! You treat these damn humans better than you treat me, and they're nothing but dirt under your fingernails. You've already outlived generations of them, and you'll keep living for generations more."  
  
"What is he talking about, Vash?" Merle looked at him, her confusion present in her eyes.  
  
"I'm not human. I'm a Plant." Vash said, his voice monotonous, his expression unchanging. Something inside him was about to snap. It was like when he killed Legato. The mounting insanity, the increasing tension. Only one small thing had to happen before he pulled the trigger again. And this time it would be a fatal blow.  
  
"She means that much to you, and you never told her? How could she love you if she knew who you truly are, Vash? If she knew what you truly are?" Knives had turned his head to look at Vash, but now he turned back to Merle. "It would never happen. Only you and me, Vash, could ever live in harmony, and that would only be if we were alone in this world. Just give up on humans. They're a waste of time and space..." He pulled the trigger. "And bullets."  
  
An audible "snap" echoed inside Vash's mind.  
  
'Vash, take care of Knives...'  
  
Those words from long ago. They made a reappearance as Merle's souless body collapsed onto the bar. The blood flowed freely from the bullet hole Knives had made in her skull, pooling on the counter and then dripping onto the floor.  
  
"Don't worry, Rem," Vash whispered under his breath. "I'll take care of Knives."  
  
The snap that had echoed only to his hears, now echoed in the surrounding air as the shot he had fired from his gun.  
  
He hadn't killed Knives. He merely shot him in his other shoulder. Now he wouldn't be able to shoot his gun, and his time was severely limited with the Vash he was now facing. In the eyes of this seemingly completely different person no longer echoed the "love and peace" idealism. There was no mercy in these eyes.  
  
Vash stood over Knives, who had been knocked onto the floor by the force of the shot, and was now laying on his back, bleeding profusely from both wounds.  
  
"You killed her! You killed them both! You took away my reasons for being alive, Knives, so now, I'm taking away yours. Take care."  
  
The next shot from his gun took a life that was thought by some to be immortal, and also took away Vash's last link to the past, and the last person he had ever been close to.  
  
The word lonliness now took on a new meaning as the tears of Vash's subconscious, mourning for what he had done, and for what he had become, flowed down his cheeks. But he didn't feel them, on his skin or in his heart. He had snapped, and the dead, bleeding body before him meant no more to him than a tumbleweed blown by the desert winds.  
  
***  
  
A/N: I know that was short, but please don't kill me! I PROMISE the next one will be longer and its significance will fall close to this one.  
  
Preview: Desperation can sometimes lead to an act that no one except the one who commits it understands, but when that person is lost, then their reason dies with them. No one can truly understand the workings of the human heart.  
  
Chapter 4: Farewell, Friend 


	4. Farewell, Friend

Trigun: Agony  
  
A/N & Disclaimer: Like I said, I don't own Trigun. Oh, and apparently, I heard from a trusted source that Trigun: Almighty is not a sequel to Trigun, and Trigun the anime is COMPLETELY different than the manga ( I had a feeling about that....) So my sequel is perfectly fine...In a sense....Yasuhiro Nightow, if you find this, please don't kill me! Kill my personalities! It was all their idea! I could use less voices in my head....Well, anyway...here's Chapter 4! Enjoy!  
  
Chapter 4: Farewell, Friend  
  
Milly could've sworn she heard a gunshot, then some yelling, and then another gunshot. But the music from the celebration made her mind doubt what she heard, although her heart told her otherwise.  
  
It was like a knife of grief had stabbed her through the heart, a pain she knew all to well from before. Someone close to her was gone.  
  
She ran back to the place they were staying.  
  
"Merle!! Merle, Vash! Are you guys okay?!" she screamed down the dirt road, her long brown hair trailing out behind her as she ran.  
  
She slowed when she saw the door open and Vash step out from inside the house. "Vash! You're okay!" She said as she jogged over to him. She tried peering over his shoulder. "Where's Merle? Is she alright?"  
  
Vash pushed her lightly in the shoulder, away from the open doorway behind him. "Merle is gone."  
  
Milly couldn't see his eyes. They were blocked by the orange-yellow lens of the glasses he seldom wore. But there was something about his voice...It was so cold it sent chills down her spine and gave her goose bumps...And yet, at the same time, tears filled her eyes and flowed down her cheeks, because she knew he was right.  
  
She didn't want to believe it, though. She had to see it for herself. /Merle can't be dead! She can't! Not after everything we've been through! This has got to be a joke!...Or a bad dream...,/ she thought to herself as she used all her strength to push Vash aside and stumbled into the room, scanning it frantically.  
  
Her eyes grew wide and her hand flew up to cover her mouth where her jaw had dropped. A large pool of blood surrounded the base of the bar stool Merle sat on. If it wasn't for the dripping scarlet, one would've thought that she was simply a drunk that had passed out on the bar counter, but the ever widening puddle told the observant eye otherwise.  
  
Milly fell to her knees. This couldn't be happening! First the one she loved, now her best friend...Why was life so cruel! None of the advice from her older siblings could help her now. She was too embedded in grief to even think of any past wisdom they had eagerly offered her. Her eyes were blank as the tears flowed unobstructed down her cheeks.  
  
And then a thought came to mind. A thought she never would've guessed was her own. Under normal circumstances, anyway. She pushed it away. She didn't want it to exist. It wasn't hers. She was better than that....And yet...It floated to the front of her thoughts again.  
  
It was better than this. It was definately better than this. The ones she loved were dropping like flies (please excuse the cliche) and the last friend she had left was now more ice than anything else. It was the only thing that would end her pain.  
  
She pushed herself off the floor onto wobbling knees and headed out the door. She knew what she had to do.  
  
A good (or should I say "bad") fifteen minutes later, a yellowish blur fell from atop the largest tower in the area. Vash watched with a heart of stone and a mind as numb as ice. After the blur stopped when it reached the ground, and a loud "snap" echoed off the surrounding buildings, Vash turned and walked away, his subconscious screaming at him, telling him he could've saved her. But he was deaf to it. He was deaf to everything. The last of the snap that echoed around the city resembled the one he had heard in his mind not to long before. Now he would live up to his reputation as Vash the Stampede, the horrible killing machine known as the Human Typhoon.  
  
***  
  
A/N: Dammit! I know, another short chapter. I don't care if you think Milly is OC! This is my fanfic, and it could happen!...maybe....anyway, I'll write more soon. Love and Peace!  
  
Preview: The man with ice for eyes and stone for a heart wandered the desert in search of something to do with a life that meant nothing. When your mind is numb, and your heart is cold, what happens to the part of you that was once warm? Does it freeze forever, locked in the ice, or can it be thawed out? This man is numb to all, and some blood on the sand causes him as much grief as eating a sandwich.  
  
Chapter 5: A Heart So Cold 


	5. A Heart So Cold

Trigun: Agony  
  
A/N & Disclaimer: Sadly, I still do not own Trigun. I wish I did...Then I could draw the manga for this fanfic, and have it made into anime, and all would be right in the world...*sigh*...*snaps back to reality* Moving on, this is chapter four..err, no wait...five. Yeah, and Vash is going to seem a little OOC, but if you read the last four..yeah, four chapters, you should realize he isn't. Have fun! (Is that the right thing to end this off with...hmm...oh well...)  
  
Chapter 5: A Heart So Cold  
  
As he walked through the desert city people hurried out of the street to the safety of their homes, where they locked the doors and latched the wondows tightly shut.  
  
Vash walked nonchalantly down the street, no expression on his face, the light from the double suns of this desert world reflecting off the orangish- yellow lenses of his sunglasses. Even their heat could not melt the ice that encased the eyes hidden behind the lenses.  
  
The scene spread out before him was very similar to the one he had encountered after Legato left a city, leaving many men dead by his hands. That same fear arose from the people who watched the blonde, spikey-haired man with the red, flowing trenchcoat, calmly walk down the main road of their city.  
  
The rumors about him had grown in their intensity, and although the $$60,000,000 bounty was still on his head, no one dared to obtain it. The stories that followed him told of a man that bathed in the blood of the people who tried to stike him down. This "Vash the Stampede" was the ultimate killing machine, and none of his targets escaped his deadly accurate aim.  
  
There was a time no less than a couple of years ago when these rumors were less potent, and the description of the enemy less exact, but now the stories were swimming with detail and everyone in town had heard them. No soul dared to look out a window at him, but all women clung tightly to their children and all men bore weapons they knew as useless in a futile attempt to protect their families in case the need arose.  
  
When Vash had reached the well located at the center of town, he calmly got a drink, and then proceeded to walk the rest of the way down the street, out of the town, and into the setting sun.  
  
Inside his head swam many memories, all of which blurred together to form an incoharent sequence of pictures that told his life in a rather unsequential order. It was the desperate attempt of his subconscious to remind him of who he was and what he should be,...But the pictures meant nothing to the green eyed man, and he walked on into the dusk of the dying day as if his mind was a complete blank.  
  
The pictures that swam in and out of focus came from over a hundred years of a life of torture. Pictures of Rem and her untimely death made up most of tge incoherant jumble. Knives made up a good portion as well. But the most recent, and clearest pictures, were of Merle. She stood out surprisingly clear against the rest, and was shown most ofen when Rem was, his mind categorizing them together, being the two most important focuses of Vash's love. Of course, he loved his brother, or had loved his brother, but they were too different to ever form a deep brotherly affection for each other. Peace and war just can't coexist.  
  
Vash's legs still carried him onward, even after the sun had set and the bright light of the moons filled the sky, along with the light of the brighter stars that could break through the moonlight.  
  
He was barely alive. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, or slept, and his thoughts didn't even seem his own anymore. He was insane. In a sense, anyway. He was acting purely on instinct, and instinct alone. There was no "conscious thought" for him. He was an animal. An animal with no home and nothing to protect. An animal that didn't know he had a life, or what to do wit it. He was nothing, and because of this, life meant nothing.  
  
Or, it would mean nothing, for a while anyway, until the next day dawned, and his conscious mind would finally be awakened from its long slumber.  
  
***  
  
A/N: Yeah, that was kind-of depressing, huh? Um...sorry?....It's just the mood I'm in...Yeah....Well, anyway, that was kind-of like a filler episode (in a fanfic?! what is wrong with me?!...yeah, yeah, I know....). It's just this joke me and my friend have about waht happens in the next chapter, and how it's in chapter 6, long story...(See, if I hadn't gone to sleep, and I didn't dream about an episode of Trigun that doesn't exist, this would've never happened..yeah, anyway...) Chapter 6 will be coming soon. Jaa!  
  
Preview: The snap that echoed so long ago reoccured in this man's mind. When he realizes what horrible things he's done he can't help but freze in horror and let the tears that filled his eyes trickle down his trembling cheeks. The ice has melted and the mind has returned, but will there be sanity after so much chaos was created by his hands? Will he forgive himself, or kill himself? Or will he choose the ice? Only father time can heal the wounds of the heart.  
  
Chapter 6: Shock of Returning 


End file.
